Climbing the GREat ladder.

Finally done with the GRE, and man am I glad. I’m writing a tutorial here. Notes that I think helped me, and that irrespective of the relatively bleak reach of my blog, might help a few others. I referred this tutorial (thanks piscianemperor), and since I believe it’s everyones duty to give back to the community whatever you extract from it, here is mine:

The answer to the question of how much time you should give to GRE prep is ambiguous, but I think one month devoted exclusively to the GRE is perfect.

Practice Material:

1. Quantitative: Dilip Oak’s Math material. That’s it. It’s great preparation, it’s comprehensive. Forget Princeton, Kaplan, Nova and all that crap. I got an extremely weird Quantitative section on the test: questions were different and a little tricky, the kind I hadn’t solved before, but the DOA material ensured I wasn’t overly fazed.

2. Verbal: The 54 Big Book tests. I found these to be the most helpful when compared to the actual questions on the GRE. Most questions were of a similar pattern to that of Big Book. They were not the same questions obviously, but the difficulty level was exactly the same. I’d solved 40 tests completely, timed at 30 minutes for the 38 questions. On the actual test, you get 30 questions, but you’re likely to receive a third passage, instead of just the two. It all evens out. I solved the remaining 14 tests without the RC’s. (Well, it takes too long).

I used very little of Dilip Oak’s verbal material, and whatever little I used, I found it to be different from the actual test questions.

Look at each question type separately:

1. Sentence Completions: I don’t know why, but for a long time, I found these to be harder than they actually are. The best way to solve these is to look for clues all over the place. Most answers are determined singularly by these clues. Don’t let your logic or your instinct drive you to the answer, let the clues lead you.

2. Antonyms: I never really had a problem with these. On the harder ones though, expressing the meaning of the word in a sentence, rather than just a synonym, helps. The options can get a little tricky.

3. Reading Comprehension: These are the easiest of them all as long as you read the passage carefully. I audaciously turned off the clock during the RC questions on my actual test (something I hadn’t ever tried before), but it really helped me concentrate. Worth a try. The point is to make sure you read and interpret correctly, irrespective of how long you take. If you can keep your mind open and amenable to any suggestion the passage might try to propound, choosing the correct answer is just a matter of time.

4. Analogies: Okay, I struggled throughout with these. One thing is making sure you have the exact relationship between the two stem words, which means your vocab must be immaculate. The degrees of intensity is one specific analogies type which the test writers consider to be the hardest. 1-2 of these questions almost certainly appear on the GRE, but with a little bit of practice, they’re easy to tackle.

Tests:
1. I strongly suggest the Big Book paper based tests. Forget everything else. If you can finish most of the 54 tests, and get your scores upto and above 32/38 consistently, there’ll be no issues on the actual test. You can download the Big Book tests from right here.

2. Computer Adaptive Tests: My scores here were erratic. I can’t stress enough to neglect the scores you get on these tests. They’re not ways for you to get better at solving questions. They’re not the scores you’ll get on the real test. They’re just ways to help you pace yourself, try out different techniques to tackle CBT’s and make sure you don’t make mistakes on the questions that count the most towards your score (The first 10-15 questions). I suggest trying the CBT’s only once you’ve got a pretty good idea how to solve each question type separately. These were my test scores. If you figure out a pattern, let me know!
11 days before: Princeton 1: Verbal 700, Quant 770

8 days before: Barron’s: Verbal 790, Quant 800

5 days before: PowerPrep 1: Verbal 620, Quant 800

4 days before: Princeton 2: Verbal 780, Quant 800

3 days before: PowerPrep 1 re-take: Verbal 690, Quant 800

3 days before: GRE Bible 1: Verbal 800, Quant 800. (Most of these questions are the same as the Big Book questions.)

2 days before: PowerPrep 2: Verbal 580, Quant 800. (This freaked me out. I made way too many ridiculous mistakes.)

Actual GRE: Verbal 700, Quant 800

I spent the time between my last test and the actual GRE analyzing why I was going wrong, and correcting that. It’s very, very important to analyze why you’re making mistakes, rather than where you’re making mistakes. More than the stupid Oak class, what helped me is self-analysis. The best way to get to the answer is not picking the right one from the five, but rejecting the four wrong ones. It sounds absurd, but it’s the best thing to do.

To end it, I don’t think I’ve ever been riddled with self-doubts as much as I was before the GRE! The only thing I did the day before the test (after my horrendous PowerPrep score) was to decide a technique I was going to follow for every question type, and stick to it. It worked. But ideally, you wouldn’t want to be in a position where you’re trying to increase your PowerPrep scores by more than 100 points in two days. It’s extremely taxing! Forget what prep books teach you. You know better than anyone else what’s best for you.